A San Jacinto College committee is putting together plans for implementing a new state law that requires incoming college students to receive a vaccination or booster against bacterial meningitis. The law goes into effect Jan. 1.

The new law was passed after a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found college-age individuals between 17 and 21 are particularly vulnerable to the disease.

The meningitis vaccine is required for all new students to San Jacinto College for the spring 2012 term. Transfer students are considered new students.

Under the law, a student, or parent or guardian, must show evidence of receipt of an initial bacterial meningitis vaccination dose or booster during the five-year period preceding, and at least 10 days prior to the first day of the first semester in which the student initially enrolls at an institution, or following a break in enrollment of at least one fall or spring semester at the same or another institution.

(Newser) â Rick Perry told Michele Bachmann in Monday night's GOP debate that he received only a $5,000 donation from HPV vaccine maker Merck, but his financial ties to the drug maker are closer than that figure suggests, the Washington Post finds. Perry's campaigns have received almost $30,000 from Merck since 2000 and the drug maker has given $380,000 to the Republican Governors Association since 2006âwhich Perry has chaired twice and which has contributed around $4 million to his campaigns.

Almost a third of the $217 million collected at the RGA over the last five years came from 139 donors to Perry's gubernatorial campaigns, according to the nonpartisan Texans for Public Justice group, a frequent foe of the governor. "With Perry, thereâs his Christian conservative base and crony capitalism, and when push came to shove, crony capitalism won the day,â the group's research director says of the vaccine issue. âThis puts him in trouble with a key part of his coalition."